The Wii has been the first topic we have been talking about in the Innovation and Professional Development module.
The Wii caused a lot of changes in the way people used to see games and consoles.
From a marketing point of view, the demographic target changed from hardcore gamers to a family target, including women and older people, who didn't use to play so often (maybe never).
The idea of introducing channels in the menu, like in TV, was quite interesting, and you would be able to listen to the music, watching videos and other things, although Xbox 360 took this much further.
From a hardware point of view, one of the keys for the success of Wii was the controllers, which included accelerometers, allowing the Wii to recognize people's movements with the remote controller.
This allowed some innovation in the games.
Pro evolution soccer was the first soccer game where you actually were able to choose the point where you wanted to pass the ball, instead of just facing and press the button hoping that the game would make what you wanted.
Mario games are always innovative in one way or another, and in this case, Super Mario Galaxy had a very good point with the local gravity system, depending on which planet you were standing on. This game also made use of the Wii mote to control things like mini games, where you needed to put the controller in a specific way to success, or point at the screen for some other thing.
Other games were just upgraded thanks to the options the controller offered. That's the case of Trauma Center: Second Opinion, where the player would assume the role of a surgeon, using both controllers of the Wii (Wii mote and Nunchuk) to perform the operation. The game was previously been released for Nintendo DS, but the controls were pretty different.
Another games upgraded were shooters on rails, or just shooters. A lot of these games used to require a plastic gun (sometimes it was just an improvement, not a requirement) in order to play. Wii was the first platform where you didn't need a plastic gun, because the controller was actually the gun, all in one. You were able to point at the screen and have all the buttons in the same place.
The same happens with racing games. The player could use the Wii mote as a wheel, instead of having to buy a wheel, although a plastic wheel was sold, so people could feel the steering wheel in their hands instead of the controller.
Maybe the most successful games were sword games. Red Steel, The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, Dragon Quest Swords... In these games, the player could do the movements of the sword just as if he was in the game, just holding the controllers while doing them.
The innovation of the Wii is now less significant, since people have got used to it, but when it came out, Nintendo showed a very good future vision and started a revolution in the market (followed by Play Station Move or Kinect).
In my opinion, Nintendo is not usually oriented to hardcore gamers, and because of this most third companies don't want to make games for them. The hardware is usually quite weak compared to Microsoft's or Sony's. But, in the end, Nintendo is the one who is always trying to innovate as it always does.
We will have to see if Wii U is as successful as Wii.
